Minnesota Hockey Weekend Previews

The Gopher men’s hockey team kicks off their season at home while the Gopher women take their first road trip of the season out to Boston to complete the BC/BU doubleheader. Find previews for both series below:

Gopher Men vs Michigan Tech

The Gopher men’s hockey team kicks off the season with a home series against former WCHA foe Michigan Tech. It’s the first time the Gophers have faced the Huskies since leaving the conference in 2013. Michigan Tech is the second to last WCHA team that the Gophers have faced since the collapse of the conference, and will play the final one in Denver in the hall of Fame Game in November.

Our full season previews of the Gophers are available to read with an update on the rosters HERE, and an outlook on the full season HERE. Minnesota will look to get off to a quick start aganst the Huskies as their schedule gets considerably harder in the next few weeks with top-ten matchups against Boston College and at North Dakota on the horizon. But Michigan Tech will not be pushovers.

The Huskies come in to the 2025-26 season after a middling 2024-25 year. Michigan Tech finished with a 16-17-3 record last season after going 1-8-1 in the months of February and March. The Huskies, who went 12-11-3 in conference play, entered the CCHA Tournament as the fifth seed and dropped back-to-back games at Bowling Green to end the season. But Michigan Tech has been one of those teams to take advantage of the eligibility of CHL players and they have reloaded their roster. Former Michigan assistant coach Bill Muckalt took over the coaching job for Tech in the offseason and completely overhauled the roster adding 18 new players. Of those eleven have some experience playing in the CHL including eight who were in the league a year ago. The Huskies were predicted to finish i third place in the CCHA Preseason Poll.

On the offensive side, Minnesota will need to make sure they can mark Senior forward Stiven Sardarian who was named to both the coaches and media’s Preseason All-CCHA Team and junior forward Isaac Gordon who was named to the coaches Preseason All-CCHA Team. Sophomore forward Elias Jansson was named the CCHA Rookie of the Year last season as well.

The Gophers will see a familiar face in net for the Huskies. Former Gopher goalie Owen Bartoszkiewicz is on the Tech roster after transferring from Lindenwood where he was named the Independent College Goalie of the year a season ago. He recorded a .919 save percentage and 2.57 goals-against average in 29 games for the Lions a season ago.

Minnesota will look to get some of their young talent going right from the start this weekend. Freshmen Javon Moore and LJ Mooney will likely see top 6 forward spots to start the season. Jacob Rombach and Finn McLaughlin will play heavily on defense as well. It does sound like Minnesota may be missing a pair of their highly touted freshmen this weekend though as both Mason Moe and Teddy Townsend were banged up and only had limited practice time this week. Both are listed as week to week and could potentially play, but likely will set out until next weekend.

Minnesota likely will split the weekend in goal with Nathan Airley playing in one game and Luca Di Pasquo the other.

The Gophers will look to continue their usual hot start to a season. Minnesota is 65-37-2 all-time in the first game of the year. The Gophers have even more success in their home openers, behind a record of 70-31-3, which contains a 22-8-2 mark in home openers at 3M Arena at Mariucci. That also goes along with their record of success against Michigan Tech. Minnesota holds a 174-78-15 (.680) all-time record against the Huskies. The last matchup came in Houghton, Mich., on Oct. 19-20, 2012, when the Gophers and Huskies split the series. Minnesota has won eight of the last 10 meetings overall and are 101-29-5 (.767) in games played on home ice. The Gophers’ 174 victories over MTU are the second-most against any opponent in program history, trailing only their 188 wins over Wisconsin. Bob Motzko has yet to face the Huskies as the Gopher head coach, but he posted a 17-4-1 record against MTU during his tenure at St. Cloud State.

The Minnesota and Tech rivalry was hot in the 1970’s. The teams met in three-straight national championship games in the mid-1970s—the Gophers sandwiched 1974 and 1976 national titles around the Huskies’ 6-1 win in 1975. Minnesota also topped Tech in the 1981 NCAA semifinal.

Face off for both games is slated for 7 PM Friday and Saturday. Friday night will air live on Fox9 and Saturdays will be on Fox9+. Both games will stream on B1G+ as well. A special treat for Minnesota fans will be the return of Gopher announcing legend Frank Mazzocco to the mic this weekend. With usual Fox9 play-by-play man Jim Rich in London with the Vikings, Mazzocco will handle PBP duties this weekend alongside Pat Micheletti.

Gopher Women at Boston University

The Gopher women will look to try and go 4-0 vs the City of Boston this weekend when they head to Walter Brown Arena for a series against the Boston University Terriers. The Gophers are coming off of a sweep of Boston College at Ridder Arena last weekend that saw them outscore the Eagles 18-1. The Terriers will be a bit tougher than the Eagles will be.

Minnesota remains ranked #3 in the nation after their blowout wins last weekend. They will facw the #13 ranked Terriers who have yet to play a game this season. BU was predicted to finish in second place in Hockey East after winning the Playoff Championship over UCONN in overtime a season ago. Senior Sydney Healey returns to lead the Terriers. She led BU in scoring a season ago with 23 points and 15 goals. The Terriers will gain one of the best goalies in the nation from the transfer portal this season. Former Clarkson goalie  Michelle Pasiechnyk will be in net for the Terriers after taking a season off from hockey. In 2023-24 she was named the NCAA Goaltender of the Year in 2023-24 leading the Green Knights to a 25-5-1 record. She defeated Minnesota in the NCAA Quarterfinals that season 3-2 in quadruple overtime making 61 saves.

The Gophers will look to continue their offensive dominance from a weekend ago. Abbey Murphy was named the WCHA Forward of the Week and the Month after a nine point and four goal performance. She’s second in the nation one point back of Robert Morris’ Jessica McKinnon who had ten points. Sydney Morrow led the Gopher blue liners with five points and was named the WCHA Defender of the Week. Belle Fanale was named WCHA Rookie of the Week after she scored six points including three goals in her first collegiate series.

Minnesota will look to spilt time in goal once again most likely. Hannah Clark allowed just one goal in the season opener last Thursday followed by freshman Layla Hemp picking up a 25-save shutout in her first NCAA game on Friday.

Minnesota will likely be missing an important player on their blue line as Chloe Primerano will miss the series as she is with the Canadian National Team at one of their pre-Olympic camps.

Minnesota will look to continue their dominance of the Terriers. The Gophers are 7-1 all time against BU, but are just 1-1 in Boston. Last season the Gophers swept a series in Minneapolis winning 1-0 and 5-2. BU’s last win was a 6-5 OT game in December of 2016.

Face off against the Terriers is set for 5 PM on Friday and 3 PM on Saturday. Both games will stream on ESPN+.